


A Girl Who Argues

by Peapods



Category: Emma (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 20:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21482563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: Mr. Knightley is flabbergasted to discover that what living as a woman has taught Emma is this: men don't like girls who argue.
Relationships: George Knightley/Emma Woodhouse
Comments: 9
Kudos: 182





	A Girl Who Argues

George was so flabbergasted when she said it that he didn't even think about the implications until after their argument had blown up so badly that he could hardly think, let alone speak.

“Men don’t like girls who argue,” he whispered, slightly into his cups and wondering why that statement had stuck with him. Emma was so sure. She had tried to hijack the conversation, to be sure, but the conviction in her voice, a wide-eyed look of unchallenged belief, had shaken him. 

Emma had fought with George about nearly every subject they’d ever landed on. She had tackled those discussions with confidence, relish even. How could she believe that he had not enjoyed their verbal repartee? How could she believe she was anything less than his closest friend and confidant? He could only think that he must have somehow put this thought in her head, but when? How? Ms. Taylor -- Mrs. Weston -- had never been harsh with her, never told her that her voice was unwanted or unladylike, had only encouraged some temperance. Mr. Woodhouse had shown her nothing but doting affection. 

Was her belief that she would never marry based on some misguided belief that she, in her entirety, would be unwanted?

His chest tightened that someone like Emma Woodhouse could think so highly of herself, but also think that no man would ever want her because she _argued_. 

The night John and Isabella arrived, George was still struggling with his anger over her meddling and his self-loathing. Emma was trying to mend bridges, he recognized, in her whispered request for the salt, but George could barely look at her. As the tension elevated at the table, he finally sought her eyes. Her discomfort with the fighting had made her go so pale and her eyes desperately begged for some kind of intervention. 

He intervened.

Later that night, gone home to Donwell and made up with Emma regarding Harriet Smith and Robert Martin, he forced himself to confront his thoughts regarding that argument and Emma’s discomfort tonight.

There had been the carefully hidden envy even as she teased her nephews over their trip to the seaside. There had been her fumbling attempt at normalcy with him. There had been her inability to stop John and Mr. Woodhouse from arguing. There had been the serene, beautiful expression as she gazed upon little Emma. 

George would cherish that image forever.

Emma was many things--exasperating, witty, self-centered, full of optimism and bubbling charm--but there was also a deep, pernicious, unacknowledged anxiety in her. As the de facto lady of the house, she had been taught to smooth the way, to find new topics when discussion strayed too close to acrimony, and to offer hospitality to all regardless of her personal feelings -- as ungiving as those feelings could sometimes be. She had resigned herself, George thought, to a life unchanging and yet always poised on the edge of a knife. He had, he flattered himself, become a respite from duty. But how to make her see?

*****

There were few men of sense, and station, that befit Emma in Highbury. She was unlikely to venture beyond her small community to discover anything more than a lovely view. Her father’s comfort was paramount and their friends and acquaintances had done much to accommodate him whilst giving Emma her freedom of expression.

Frank Churchill was as ill-suited for Emma as Elton was for Harriet Smith! Age and station may recommend them to each other, but there weren’t any two people on the planet so enamored with the sounds of their own voices. They’d talk each other mad!

George recalled Emma’s face with baby Emma, her sparkling wit, her enthusiasm and vigor. Frank Churchill would be too busy admiring himself, demonstrating his own wit, and enjoying himself to admire Emma’s best qualities.

_ “Men don’t like girls who argue!”_

So perhaps that was what drew them together. Frank would let her argue and never offer a sensible rebuttal. He would agree, or flatter, or simply ignore. But perhaps he was being ungracious.

A part of him knew he was. That part of him who stared after Emma as she danced and dazzled the room. That part of him that ever found him taking the path to Hartfield. That part that wondered what she would look like holding her own child and feeling wretched that he would not have the same rights to sit with her and hold the babe.

George watched her stare out the window, looking lost and melancholy. She had few of these moments, so he took particular care to listen to her and respond. Their long friendship informed his decision not to indulge the mood, to reassure her and then give her a way forward. As her face became more animated and the excitement of the project seized her, he found himself smiling.

*****

He could not bear his feelings. Scolding Emma was nothing new, but her reaction certainly was. Though he tried to forget her disheveled appearance and haggard expression, and throw himself into his nephews’ entertainment, he was haunted by them. Realizing his love for Emma, his _need_ to be hers had forced him to confront his own poor qualities and to reconcile with hers. No one was perfect. He had often been too harsh with her, cruel even at times, though those times were long in the past and as much related to his own youth as hers. She had vanity and her misapplied wit and such a confidence that all would love her no matter what. Her missteps with Harriet, Jane Fairfax, and Miss Bates had apparently given her the perspective he’d tried to instill in her for 21 years.

The past year hadn’t been particularly kind to Emma, who was so used to being at ease and coddled. To have Mrs. Weston move on, to have a new friend bring new perspective, and to have Frank Churchill upend her expectations all had to have been somewhat wrenching to her world view. She had been forced to introspection on her life and what she had made of it. But perhaps it had been those experiences, and his own study of her changes in response to them, that had inveigled him and altered his feelings from familial friendship to romantic adoration.

He could not bear it and so he awayed to London.

However, there was nothing, he feared, that would turn his heart from its object now.

*****

She was the most vexing, charming, effusive, affectionate, argumentative, and stubborn creature alive.

Anyone who said marital bliss relied upon the steadfast and demure nature of the wife had never been married to Emma Woodhouse.

George Knightley would have it no other way.

**Author's Note:**

> Every time I watch this series and hear that line, I have to watch it like 5 times. Romola Garai's near desperate tone that still carries so much conviction and Jonny Lee Miller's almost double-take "WTF" reaction are SO GREAT.
> 
> However, I never see anyone talk about it or how Knightley might have taken it. So I decided to write it.
> 
> I thoroughly believe that he'd never try and squash that particular personality trait out of her. He likes to argue too if his propensity to try and start shit is anything to by.


End file.
